BeatitudesIntroduction

The Beatitudes, an IntroductionMatt. 5:1 And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him (Matt. 5:1 NKJV).

In the next 7 verses, Jesus will give us the key to the restoration of living happy lives or, as the translators have it, blessed lives. When I first studied the Beatitudes a few years ago, I thought this was the process of moving into oneness with God, a journey through sequential steps over time. I came to see that this was not the whole process. The Beatitudes then seemed a daily process, reminiscent of Paul’s, “I die daily’ (1 Cor. 15:31). But that is not wholly correct either. Now the understanding is clearer. “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17) is done through living the Beatitudes moment to moment, the continual application of the principles reflecting that the person’s character has changed. This transition, this journey into oneness with God and His Creation, is Moses’ 40 years in the desert. It is Paul’s three years in Arabia and Syria. It is Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness. Whatever time it takes, that is how long it will be. And the process continues day by day, moment by moment. The journey into the Beatitudes is long at first. At some point the travel time will be instantaneous. Then we will have arrived at our destination.

In Matthew 5:1, the disciples, new to their calling, came to Jesus to hear His teaching. They had already been introduced to His ministry – teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people (Matt. 4:23 NKJV). Matthew now gives us a formal presentation of what Jesus has preached and will continue to preach concerning the kingdom of heaven. Jesus begins with a seven step program for recovery from the delusion of chaos, our separation from God. We call Matthew 5:3-9 the Beatitudes because each verse begins (in Latin, the language of the church of Rome) with “Beatus,” translated as “blessed.” The Latin dictionary gives us the understanding of “happy, fortunate, prosperous.” This is what our loving God has intended for us from the beginning. Jesus is simply reminding God’s people of the order of things, the manner in which we are blessed. That is, happy or content, regardless of circumstance because we are in a state of oneness with God, blessed because He is blessed, as is His Son.

You probably have heard (or felt), “I am blessed,” because of some fortunate event. Of course, unfortunate events occur, too. Are we blessed even then?Paul and James speak of the trials that we endure, and each gives an aspect of the blessedness that occurs even in unfavorable events, a window into trials and how we may emerge from them “approved by God.” God’s approval, His blessing upon us, is a confirmation that we have done what is best in our own interest. Here we understand that His interest is our interest, and this occurs only when our character is His character. Jesus gives an overarching view of what blessedness means, statements describing the new man or woman. This study is to hear His words from one perspective, perhaps a reminder or perhaps new to you. As we come to understand His words in Matthew 5, we see how far we have missed the mark.

The Bible that we have received has evolved through the ages. The words have passed through the filters of different languages, and the concepts have been reformulated through the lens of various translators. Early Christianity grew in the face of persecution by the greatest power on earth. The message of the early missionaries was so strong that people faced even death for the new life that they had found, the life in the here and now that continued into the life beyond. The Message was transformative. Transformative for many, but for those who would not accept the new life but clung to the power of the world, fear of losing control ruled. All they valued was in jeopardy in the face of this spiritual revolution. Their bondage to the illusion of the physical world caused them to make war against those who embraced this new life. The word “evolved” seems to be very appropriate: although of the same species, “Scripture,” we have a much tamer, domesticated version of the original. For many people, Creation’s lion is now but a kitten – adorable in its small space, but not relevant to the larger world. The Way has become a side track, a place to visit and rest a moment before continuing business as usual. I confess that this is true for me, and observation says that this is not uncommon, but I cannot speak for others.

The other dimensions around us, those beyond the three that are evidence of our material world (3-1/2 if you include the dimension of time, which we see only in the past), remain hidden. The spiritual world beyond our physical senses is a mystery, and language always has had difficulty in making the invisible fit into a box of concrete words. The Scripture of Jesus’ day (what we call the Old Testament) also was cloaked in languages of long ago, put to parchment by those who understood them only in light of the present tense, not the larger than life spiritual dimensions of a distant past. Jesus gave Scripture a new translation. He gave the character of God a fresh understanding in the language of the people of His day. To make the message clearer, giving the words a visual interpretation, He lived what He preached. He gave evidence of the Word’s authenticity. We need such a translator today.

If you have ever seen a picture of a complicated structure, a flat two dimensional view from a single reference point, you understand the value of new perspectives. The more of these two dimensional pictures from different angles that you see, the greater the understanding of the structure. As you see more and more of the legitimate representations of the original edifice, the easier it becomes to recognize misrepresentations as being those of other buildings, projects of men not joined to the original creation. This writing may even be such as those, but I pray not. May it be just one more of the two dimensional representations of a structure that is not so much complicated as it is magnificent, not so much a place as a state of being. Pray for discernment.

What follows is a limited understanding of the summary of His teaching as presented by Matthew in the first few verses of what we call the Sermon on the Mount. May there be something here that is true and recognizable, shedding more light. As mentioned above, God desires that we be blessed, or happy, fortunate, and prosperous. He would want no less for us. To achieve this happiness, this peace regardless of our surroundings, requires a return to the original state of oneness with God, as with Adam and Eve in the Garden. In this original state, we are blessed because He is blessed. This is what Jesus models for us, and he speaks this in these seven verses.​ Verse 10 is often counted as an eighth Beatitude, and perhaps it is, but there are many reasons to see this verse differently. We will study this later. For now, observe that verses 3 through 9 speak of the character of the individual, inner qualities that reshape our views of the people and events in the world. The persecution of verse 10 is not a part of man’s character but speaks to the character of other people as they judge and condemn. Perhaps you have heard a sermon saying that if you are not being persecuted, then you are not living a Christian life. Our character is not determined by whether we are persecuted or not (although there will be tests!). This verse and the two that follow have their place, but that is for later. We begin now with the first Beatitude.Next article